A lot has happened since my last entry.  Mostly good stuff.  If I posted everyday, you would see more up and down emotion from me.  I'm like that, but I haven't had time to pull out my laptop and there was the whole power outage thing...

Quick summary of what's happened, bullet-point style:

• Father's Day happened and I had a really good day with my kids (lots of Chinese food), but Susan was still in the hospital.  I saw other people posting on Facebook and other sites about time with their spouses and all I wanted was to be able to split a bottle of wine with my wife.  That's all.  That broke me down.
• Susan came home from the hospital the next day.  I was really happy to have her home but she was still feeling awful.  Sleeping OK, but nausea was a factor and she wasn't comfortable eating or drinking.
• Susan ended up back in the ER while I was at work, minutes after assuring me she would be OK.  One of the worst feelings in my life, that she was being taken to the ER via ambulance while I was crunching numbers in an office.  I watched them try to stick an IV in her four times that night.  She has always had bad veins, but dehydration due to the nausea made things so much worse.  She ultimately spent two nights there. When she came home she seemed to feel much better.

It's at this point that I feel I can't gloss over details because I think we turned a corner after that.  We had our  first appointment with the oncologist a few days after she came home and she felt awful.  "I'm the sickest person here," she said to me while waiting her turn.  I looked around.  There were many people in the office that looked healthy, but they are visiting an oncologist, so they aren't well.  Most of them probably didn't have their sigmoid colon removed along with a full hysterectomy two weeks earlier.

We went in and met with the doctor, all the while Susan had her head down on the exam table as she sat in a chair.  Pale as a ghost.  Well, even more pale than her normal red-headed Irish complexion.  The doctor came in and went through the details.  Stage IIB.  To me, that was in line with everything I had heard.  She had a T4 tumor, which is really bad, but there was no evidence that cancer was in the lymph nodes (Stage III) or that it had spread to distant sites (Stage IV).  Susan had convinced herself it was Stage IV or at least IIC.  Anyway, good news.  80% curable with surgery alone.  Chemo may or may not be more successful--hard to tell as most are cured without it.  Due to the the stage of the tumor, though, chemo is planned.  Folfox in what seems to be a low dose.  He doesn't think she'll even lose her hair, which is awesome.  It will still suck, but for the first time since this started, I think Susan is positive that she'll be here for me and the kids.  Having said that, we were still at the ER that night to get fluids.  We came home at a reasonable hour and things have been better ever since.

Since that visit to the oncologist, Susan is eating and drinking fairly normally and feeling much better.  She looks fantastic, although neither of us would recommend cancer as a weight-loss technique.  She went out to the movies today with her college friends Joelle and Amy, which was her first social trip out without me and/or the kids since this all started.  I am so happy that she was able to do that, even though Garrison tried to make life difficult for me and Brooks.  She's already 3, so what can you expect?

As I mentioned, there is a long road ahead with chemo, but our attitude is more positive and now that she got through surgery and the initial aftermath, I think she can handle chemo.  

One of these days, this will all be over, everyone will be healthy and I can thank all of our friends and family for all they have done for us.  Your love and kindness can never be repaid, but know that we appreciate it.

Next post sooner than this.

Much love.

Wes